Patrick Henry College: Where Tolerance and Liberty Do NOT Go Together!

Just Look At The Students!

If you're looking for the epitomy of "Christian Colleges" for your offspring who have been home-schooled to death the ONLY place on the planet is Patrick Henry College. They are, after all, attempting to follow in the footsteps of Found Father Patrick Henry, who said "Give me Liberty or give me death!"

And what the college's administration wants everyone to know is that Patrick Henry did NOT say "Give me Tolerance or give me death!"

(from wikipedia.org)

In a May 24, 2006 interview with Fresh Air on National Public Radio, the former president of Patrick Henry College, Michael Farris, commented that the college held the view that its faith was the only true faith ("We believe that there is truth and there is error."), and he expressed disapproval of religious and social toleration.

"Tolerance cannot coexist with liberty" because "the crowd of tolerance wants to ban speech."

Meaning: if you are Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Catholic, or Buddhist don't go near the place. You might not be alive to talk about tolerance.


Actually, some people dared to approach Patrick Henry College: Soulforce, the LGBT organization that each year goes on a "freedom ride" to colleges and universities to debate gay rights and tolerance for gays. Patrick Henry College did offer to debate, but not on its campus. The Soulforce team spent hours in the cold rain with their gay-positive signs. One person was arrested for trespassing. The college did not want to "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

Jona Frank's book Right looks at Patrick Henry college with a (only slightly) jaundiced eye, but manages to capture the essence of a school established for the home-schooled (that is, home-schooled strictly for religious and political reasons).

To look at the photos of these students is to look into the eyes of blatant intolerance for those who are not born-again Christians. Even their smiles exhibit a kind of smarmy, aloofness, a look that says "if you're not Christian, you're not my equal." It's a haughty look trying to shield a vacuity that to the outside world is, well...boring. There is not much life to them. They were not only home-schooled but shielded from a world they, perhaps, will never know.

They will never know tolerance.

And they will be sent out into the world to lead the rest of us.

Heaven forbid.

Just a thought.